Question:
Answer:
It is not accurate to say that every fragment of a consecrated host retains the real presence of Christ irrespective of size.
The traditional teaching, as I indicated on the radio, is that when the consecrated elements no longer have the appearance of bread and wine, the Real Presence ceases.
St. Thomas Aquinas writes:
When the body and the blood of Christ succeed in this sacrament to the substance of the bread and wine, if there be such change on the part of the accidents as would not have sufficed for the corruption of the bread and wine, then the body and blood of Christ do not cease to be under this sacrament on account of such change, whether the change be on the part of the quality, as for instance, when the color or the savor of the bread or wine is slightly modified; or on the part of the quantity, as when the bread or the wine is divided into such parts as to keep in them the nature of bread or of wine. But if the change be so great that the substance of the bread or wine would have been corrupted, then Christ’s body and blood do not remain under this sacrament; and this either on the part of the qualities, as when the color, savor, and other qualities of the bread and wine are so altered as to be incompatible with the nature of bread or of wine; or else on the part of the quantity, as, for instance, if the bread be reduced to fine particles, or the wine divided into such tiny drops that the species of bread or wine no longer remain (Summa Theologiae III:77:4, emphases added).
Similarly, in 1972, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated:
After communion, the left-over hosts, as well as any particles that may have fallen from them and that still have the form of bread, are to be reserved or consumed with the reverence due to the eucharistic presence of Christ.
Further, with regard to any other eucharistic fragments, the prescriptions on purifying the chalice and paten are to be observed as they are given in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal nos. 120, 138, 237–239 and in the “Order of Mass” with a congregation no. 138 and without a congregation no. 31.
Hosts not consumed at once are to be carried by an authorized minister to the place where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved (see General Instruction of the Roman Missal no. 276) (Declaration Cum de fragmentis, emphases added).
The Congregation thus honors the traditional teaching by speaking of three things: (1) hosts, (2) particles of hosts that still have the form of bread, and (3) other particles (i.e., those that are so small they no longer have the appearance of bread). The Congregation indicates that (1) and (2) retain the Real Presence and so “are to be reserved or consumed with the reverence due to the eucharistic presence of Christ,” whereas (3) are to be taken care of with the prescriptions for purifying the chalice and paten. Per Aquinas, they no longer have the Real Presence, but because they used to have the Real Presence, they are to be disposed of with proper ceremony (i.e., being dissolved in water and then the water consumed or—if it’s the water used to wash a corporal—poured into a sacrarium).